When you come right down to it, though, Scherzer knows that he cannot take sole credit — as much as people would like to give it to him — for his historic 12-0 start to this season. He knows he’s not here without a ton of offensive support and a little luck, to go along with very good, very solid, very consistent pitching on his part.

That’s why he’s been so unerringly consistent in his message after each and every successive win, repetitively responding to questions with essentially the same answer, one that’s a large part humble, and an equally large part realistic.

“It’s nice to be (insert current win total here)-and-0. I’m not going to lie,” is the essence of what he’s said each and every time.

You think I’m kidding, exaggerating for effect? Not even a little bit.

Here’s proof:

At 7-0 ... “If I were 0-7 but pitching well and giving the team a chance to win, I’d still be proud of that,” he said then.

At 8-0 ... “You can have as much success in the league but that’s all it comes down to, your next start,” Scherzer said that day.

At 9-0 ... “It’s nice. Don’t get me wrong — I love being 9-0 — but it’s more important that we won,” he said afterward.

At 10-0 ... “It’s special to be 10-0,” Scherzer said later. “But at the end of the day, I don’t measure my success on being 10-0. I measure my success on everything else I do on the mound.”

At 11-0 ... “(What does it mean) to me personally? Not much,” he said at the time. “To be 11-0 means that everybody else around me has done their job.”

And then Friday night, when he went to 12-0:

“All I thought about is winning today. My personal record is more a reflection of the team,” Scherzer told reporters. “I don’t get caught up in the win-loss record, because it’s kind of fluky. (Thursday), Doug (Fister) goes seven innings, one run and gets a no-decision. I go six and (give up) three and get a win. So that’s why it’s a fluky stat.”

Therein lies Scherzer’s reluctance to claim more than his share of the credit for this.

He knows that he gets an ungodly amount of run support — more than any other pitcher in the American League, at 6.31 runs per start — meaning that the offense should get a large share of the credit for what’s seen as his “personal” success.

Does he deserve some credit, maybe even the lion’s share? Yes. Absolutely.

Does he deserve all of it? No.

And that’s been his point for nearly three months.

You cannot judge a pitcher solely on their win-loss record, as dazzling as it may be.

If you want to come along and say that Scherzer deserves mention among the game’s best because of his WHIP or strikeout-per-nine inning rate or strikeout-to-walk rate or his batting average against, you’d probably be more accurate.

He’s top three in the AL in all of the above.

Wins and losses are more a product of a good offense, good timing AND good pitching. All together.

Yes, it shows a pitcher who’s consistently taken his team deep into starts, and turned games over to the bullpen with his team on top. That’s not all it shows, though.

“It just also shows how good of an offense we have. I haven’t had some of the best times and they’ve picked me up,” Scherzer said. “The win-loss record is a fluky stat at times, especially when you’re on a good offensive team like I am. But at the end of the day, I judge myself not necessarily on record but how I pitch. Right now I’m pitching well, based on other things besides win-loss record.”

How deceiving can it be?

Scherzer is 12-0 with a 3.10 ERA, which ranks 28th-best in baseball.

Kansas City’s new ace, James Shields, has a 2.99 ERA, but is just 3-6.

Washington’s phenom, Stephen Strasburg, has an ERA a full half a run better than Scherzer’s — at 2.41 — yet has eight fewer wins and six more losses.

Why is that significant? Strasburg is dead last in the majors, among qualifying starting pitchers, ranking 98th in run support at 2.61. Shields is 59th at 3.94.

“You’re not 11-0 unless you’re pitching good. I’m sure you’ve had some games in there where he caught a break where we’ve scored at the right time,” Leyland said less than a week ago. “(He’s) probably caught a couple breaks but we’ve also done very well obviously.”

How about a better example: Cole Hamels of the Phillies is living through the opposite extreme as Scherzer, as far as success, approaching records for losses by the end of June that predate World War II.

Hamels is 2-11 on the season, thanks to run support of 3.18 that ranks 87th in baseball — and is about half what Scherzer gets.

The tough-luck Phillies starter has recorded 11 quality starts, just one fewer than Scherzer has, and has allowed just two more home runs than Scherzer’s 11, which rank as the most on the Tigers. (For reference, Scherzer has allowed as many homers as Justin Verlander and Doug Fister combined.) Hamels has a MLB-worst six losses in quality starts. Scherzer, obviously, has zero. (Anibal Sanchez and Fister have three each, Verlander two, Rick Porcello one).

Scherzer is in a three-way tie for the most “cheap wins” in baseball, picking up two wins in games in which he did not record a quality start.

“Trust me — when you’re winning games, they’re scoring 6-7 runs for you and you’re 10-0 with a 3.00 ERA, you’re on top of the world,” Hamels was quoted by ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. “You don’t have to think much; you just go out and react. When players have to get through the grind, that’s when you can tell they’re good. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

That’s much the same sentiment as the one espoused by Verlander, who’s gone through his own struggles this year, just a season and a half after being lauded for an historic campaign in many of the same ways as Scherzer is now.

“Funny game. That’s why there’s hot and cold streaks in sports. That’s the way it is. When you’re hot, you try to extend it as long as you can, stay in that rhythm. When you’re not, you try to get it out, get back to where you’re supposed to be, as quick as possible,” Verlander said after his last start.

“It’s not easy. When it’s going right it is easy. When it’s going wrong, it seems like everything kind of goes wrong.”

Everything’s going right for Scherzer right now. No question about that.

He’s striking people out at the nearly the same voracious rate he did a year ago.

He’s keeping people off the basepaths, cutting down on his walks and hits allowed.

He’s keeping his delivery in a consistent, repeatable arm slot, something he’d struggled with on a game-to-game basis throughout the early portion of his career. Now, he may be making those tweaks on an inning-by-inning basis. The inconsistent, on-again, off-again “Mad Max” persona hasn’t shown up this season, at all.

He’s not overthinking things, either, something that the cerebral Scherzer (to this day one of only two big-league athletes I’ve ever heard discussing the Big Bang theory on a game day) had been known to do.

“He’s a really bright guy, in a lot of areas. A very smart kid,” Leyland said. “I think he’s fine tuned it to where he’s not overloading the computer.”

And ... he’s getting a boatload of help from his offense.

Just look at Friday night. Miguel Cabrera hit two monster home runs, trumped only in magnitude of the blast from Prince Fielder that hit the catwalk on the roof of Tropicana Field in Tampa.

“I don’t know if Miggy was 4-for-4 or 5-for-5, but it was a lot-for-a lot,” Scherzer told reporters. “You got to see first-hand today the best player in the game hitting two home runs on three pitches. ... It’s the offense that set me up.”

Does he love that love from the bats? “Oh, my gosh, yes,” he laughed last week.

Max gets it. He gets it’s not just him.

He gets that he’s doing his job very, very well, but he’s winning because everyone’s doing their jobs well when he’s on the mound.

As for the All-Star Game start?

I have a feeling Max “gets” that, too.

He deserves it — for all the right reasons, in addition to his 12-0 record.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.

AL Ranks:

Where Max Scherzer ranks among American League pitchers, entering Saturday’s games.